Olbermann Conducts Brit Hume’s Inquisition

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Just when Tiger Woods thought he was safe – he gets attacked by Brit Hume on Fox News. Hume put on his inquisition robe last Sunday and basically told Tiger to turn or burn. He threatened Woods that he better accept Jesus or face a baptismal water boarding.

Well, that’s not exactly how it happened. But it sure is how Keith Olbermann presented the situation.

“Brit Hume of Fox News has… not apologized for his bizarre on-air attempt to threaten Tiger Woods into converting to Christianity.”-Olbermann

I can’t seem to figure out exactly how Hume threatened Tiger. What about offering a faith that will lead to “recovery” and “redemption” makes someone quake in their golf shoes? Obviously Hume felt that his own faith in Christianity has led to his own forgiveness and redemption. Moreover, Hume’s genuine concern for Tiger led him to courageously risk scorn and contempt from elitists and his own peers to share this faith and hope. Where I come from we call that caring about someone. It’s actually a nice thing to do. Instead, surprise surprise, Olbermann mocks and denigrates Hume.

When Hume spoke to Bill O’Reilly about how a true conversion could lead to a better Tiger, he used the example of Chuck Colson. Colson served jail time for his involvement in Watergate, converted to Christianity, and since leaving prison 30+ years ago has devoted his life to helping prisoners and others in need of mercy. Olbermann, of course, cuts that part out and instead uses Tom Cruise as an example of conversion.

“Ya know, kind of like when Tom Cruise displayed the magnificence of Scientology when he trashed Brooke Shields for her treatment of postpartum depression.”

Olbermann is either ignoring or completely ignorant of the fact that Scientology is a separate religion from Christianity. Also, the hypocrisy is almost overwhelming that Olbermann is condemning Hume for his treatment of Buddhism, when Mr. Countdown’s treatment of Scientology is far worse. Sadly, that isn’t even the most hypocritical thing Olbermann says.

“[Hume is] not being attacked for his specific religion…this is literally about somebody being, in public, holier than thou.”

Holier than thou in public? Anyone who has watched Countdown knows that Olbermann’s every moment is filled with him being holier than thou. And he treats Hume no differently. Olbermann presents himself as far holier than Hume for knowing how religion should be discussed. Though Olbermann makes no claim to be a Christian, he spends most of the segment trying to convince his viewers that he knows Christianity far better than Hume.

To back up his own views on what Christianity is really meant to be, Olbermann interviews Reverend Welton Gaddy. Ironically, it is somehow wrong for a commentator on Fox News to promote evangelical Christianity yet okay to let Rev. Gaddy proselytize liberal Christianity.

Gaddy is President of the Interfaith Alliance and host of a show on Air America. His version of Christianity is to gather with all other religions and figure out a way to make them all the same. He loves everyone but the Religious Right and those who actually believe the Bible. Now that is the kind of Christianity that can be shouted from the news networks with no fear of censorship.

The inquisitions of the past were all about doing whatever it took to silence heretics. Hume is not the accuser in this case, he is the accused. He has spoken what is heresy to the moral relativism of today. And Olbermann and the rest of the mainstream media has already pronounced sentence on him.